Late update
tonight; my girlfriend is sick and I took care of her. First headline :
a newly discovered virus causing respiratory infection. Let's hope its
just a coincidence :)
A newly discovered virus may be responsible for many respiratory tract
illnesses in infants and children, and may be associated with an
important multi-organ disease whose cause has remained a mystery for
decades, according to articles in the Feb. 15 issue of The Journal of
Infectious Diseases, now available online. The virus is one of the
numerous coronaviruses, most of which infect animals. In humans,
coronaviruses have been known primarily for causing colds or, more
recently, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Genetic evidence
now suggests that a previously unknown coronavirus may account for some
of the many respiratory diseases for which a causative agent is
unidentified, and may have a role in Kawasaki disease, the most common
cause of acquired heart disease in children in developed countries.

In the first of two studies, Jeffrey S. Kahn and co-workers at Yale
University used molecular probes targeting a gene that is common in
human and animal coronaviruses to screen hundreds of specimens for
coronavirus genetic material. Ultimately, two specimens were identified
in which the sequence of chemical building blocks of the gene differed
from that of known human coronaviruses. The Yale investigators, terming
the novel virus indicated by their findings the New Haven coronavirus,
then used probes specific for the virus to screen respiratory specimens
from 895 symptomatic children under age 5 who had tested negative for
other viral infections. They found 79 (9 percent) who were positive for
the new virus, nine of whom were subsequently found to have evidence of
recent infection with another virus as well. Of the remaining 67
patients for whom clinical data were available, signs and symptoms of
infection with the new virus included fever, cough, runny nose, rapid
breathing, abnormal breath sounds, and hypoxia; 35 had an underlying
condition, such as prematurity (19 patients). Indeed, 11 of those
infected with the new coronavirus were newborns hospitalized in
intensive care.
Analysis of the New Haven coronavirus's genetic structure showed many
similarities to that of a coronavirus recently identified by two groups
in the Netherlands, suggesting that the virus may have worldwide
distribution.
That Kawasaki disease may be associated with infection by the newly
identified New Haven coronavirus was suggested by findings in the Yale
group's second study, which was initiated when they found evidence of
the virus's genetic structure in respiratory secretions from an infant
with classic signs of Kawasaki disease. In addition to heart disease,
the signs can include conjunctivitis, redness of the mouth or throat,
rash, redness or swelling of the hands or feet, and swollen cervical
lymph nodes. The investigators then analyzed respiratory secretions
from 11 children diagnosed with Kawasaki disease and 22 children
without the disease. Eight (73 percent) of the Kawasaki patients but
only one (5 percent) of the comparison group tested positive for the
New Haven coronavirus.
In an accompanying editorial, Kenneth McIntosh of Harvard University
commented that discovery of a new human respiratory coronavirus would
not be surprising, since studies in the 1960s and 1970s had pointed to
a number of novel coronavirus strains but the findings were not
adequately followed up because methods to do so were unavailable at the
time. The statistically strong association with Kawasaki disease,
however, was "quite surprising." Noting that previous attempts to link
Kawasaki disease to bacteria or other viruses had failed and thus
justified healthy skepticism about the present findings, Dr. McIntosh
pointed out some "tantalizing facts": onset of Kawasaki disease is
often preceded by a respiratory syndrome; both the disease and
respiratory coronavirus infections are seasonal, peaking in the winter
and spring; recent studies have described a powerful immune response in
the respiratory tract and other organs in acute cases of Kawasaki
disease, suggesting the involvement of a specific microbe, which may
enter the body through the respiratory tract; finally, as the emergence
of SARS illustrates, coronaviruses "are capable of enormously varied
pathogenicity." Despite these encouraging preliminary observations, Dr.
McIntosh noted that the association between this novel coronavirus and
Kawasaki disease will require confirmation by others in larger future
investigations. Source : Eurekalert